bcs4

Jham, I agree it would be interesting to look at the variance and median numbers. But to the extent that you said you have a hard time explaining, at least consider that you may also have a hard time understanding. Me: Agree completely. There's no way to understand all projection methods. I'm just not aware of one that comes close to assessing age risk and future production. All I'm trying to do is show why an adjustment of .5 for both a 30 year old and a 40 year old is just as flawed as assigning the same life expectancy for a 20 year old and a 70 year old (an extreme example, but equally flawed as it would imply no change). Sorry about the edit, here's what I added: Me: I'm not referring to variation, I'm referring to the financial term, risk. You: The risk of going to zero may be elevated for older players, but it would also be higher for players with lower WAR to begin with since many of those players would have low WAR because of injuries. Me: Actually, the averaged WARs of the totality of MLB players will rise increasingly until 27-28 and then decline increasingly from there. You: Essentially you have competing theories of what holds more predictive power: age or prior effectiveness. Me: Actually I'm in no way saying that age and prior war are competing theories. Both age and prior effectiveness are predictive and both should be considered appropriately in determining value. If a player's WAR is trending downward, and the player is also over 28, that player is a bigger risk than a player that is trending downward but approaching 27-28. Players are more likely to improve at the age of 25 than players at the age of 31, and they are also more likely to recover or be allowed to recover from TJ surgery and other injuries than a 31 year old would.

PseudoSABR, You can't expect to allocate every dollar on the payroll for "good value." Me: The only basis for a team to sign a free agent is value. If a signing looks like bad value, either they have bad management, or the team has a bigger budget, thus the proportion of the players pay is less than other teams. So payroll expenditures beyond those for in-house players, will necessarily come from the free agent class where the market and not necessarily value dictates price. Me: The value of a player differs from team to team. For instance, one team may need a SP more than another. The value of money also varies team by team. See Yankees and Dodgers Given that we have Mauer, etc. coming off the books after this year, and Hughes etc. after next, signing Darvish now is likely to interfere less with any potential free agents in a couple years or in-house costs later. Me: Unless the Twins are factoring in the future reduction in their offer to Darvish. If we don't spend the payroll resources on Darvish, it will simply go unspent Me: Very much disagree. Mauer and Hughes will affect (effect?) future moves if they don't sign Darvish, though I can certainly understand why you feel that way.

I understand now. It's not about projecting WAR, it's the way I would adjust for age risk. Thanks

Yes, it's very hard to explain what I'm talking about. If I said that the adjustment amount, was 5%, I misspoke. I mean to convey that the adjustment referenced is .5, not 5% and I have used .5 in any calculations that I made, not 5%. I think WAR is used as a projection more than anything else. WAR has been used in this discussion entirely as a way to determine which pitcher will be of more value in the future. In fact my entire argument here has been an attempt to explain why WAR isn't a good way to project the value of an older player because it doesn't sufficiently account for age risk. If I haven't been able to explain that, I apologize. My understanding based on what I read in other's posts is that WAR has an adjustment for age (time?) of .5 to account for the possibility of the decline of the player's stats because of injury, retirement, or simply the general deterioration of the player's body over the passage of time. If I have misunderstood the adjustment, I apologise, and I hope you will clarify it for me by answering the following questions before you bow out. Is the .5 reduction that you reference included in the WAR calculation? If not, what is the name of the stat that includes the .5? If that stat is not named WAR, please mentally replace my use of WAR below with the actual stat's name because I've misused the name. The questions will apply to the new stat, not WAR. If a players WAR is 5 before the .5 reduction (I'll refer to it as WARb from now on), the result is a WAR of 4.5, is that correct? If the players WARb when he's 31 is 6, and the player's WARb at 40 is also 6, does that mean the the WAR for each age is 5.5 or is the .5 cumulative (9 years x.5=4.5) for the each year making the 40 year old's WAR 1.5? Is the .5 adjustment also included in a 26 year old player's WAR? Also, thank you for the points you made in your post. It will help me clarify, hopefully in a more concise manner.

You're right. It doesn't look like agreement is in the cards.

Yes, names matter. Intuition will play a huge part. So do past interactions with the player and recommendations from other teams. Computers can crunch the numbers, but humans assign importance Are you saying that the Twins couldn't find a use for the extra money if they want to improve?

No, I'm not saying that at all. Darvish is the biggest name followed by Arrieta. I think names bring bigger money. I would rather have Lynn for 4 years and $6 mil less a year. Add that to the budget for another reliever, or keep it and add it to Mauer's drop off and spend $30 mil on a really good player or pitcher next year. $30 mill will attract more than $23 mill will. The whole thing that I want to avoid is picking up cheap pitchers because Mauer took up so much. I want to avoid the last seven years and get good value. I think Darvish is bad value for 5 or 6 years at $25/$26 million..

No citation. It's just math. Barry Zito accumulated a 3.6 WAR because players that were no longer playing weren't factored in. I know it sounds illogical, but it's a factor in determining player value. If .5 deduction in WAR is applied to projections for all players, then it is for all practical purposes based on the average age (roughly 27), because WAR assumes an average risk of .5. The trouble with that assumption is what I've tried to explain above. The average risk for a 27 year old is substantially less than it is for a 31 year old because a larger percentage of players at the age of 31 will leave MLB than will 27 year olds. Just to pick percentages out of thin air, lets say 20% of 27 year olds leave baseball, while if the oldest player retires, the percentage of players at his age is 100%. That means that there is increasing risk from the age of 27 to the oldest retiring player. It's also not a straight line. From 27 to 28 the percentage may go from 20% to 24% but the percentage from the last year might be 60%. Again, I'm estimating the risk, I don't know the real percentages. That's why a .5% reduced WAR isn't correct because it's based on an average for all players. It may be .5% for young players, but it should be much more for older players. WAR is not a good measure of risk if it assumes .5 for every player regardless of age. If in fact WAR adjusts the factor from year to year so that a young player's risk is .2 and a 31 year olds' risk is .5, it's still incorrect. So again, WAR is not a good assessment of year to year risk, let alone a period of 5 or 6 years. Say you have 2 players with 5 WARs signed to 6 year contracts for $25 million a year, and player 1 gets injured 1 day into his contract and produces no stats but chooses to remain a player and be paid for the entirety of his contract. The way WAR handles this (assuming a yearly .5% reduction) is that player one stats will no longer be included in the calculation of WAR in the future, thus his stats have no affect (effect?) on future WAR stats. If it were, player 2's WAR would be halved each of the following years, but what WAR does, according to what you're saying is that player 2s stats are reduced .5 every only from the previous year to account adequately for player 1's lack of stats. So, according to WAR, player 2's stats would be 4.5 for each of the following years to account for possible career ending injury (and remember there are other factors that aren't considered in WAR to properly assess value risk over a 6 year contract. I've discussed them above). WAR heavily undervalues risk with increasing age. I suggest that there is a greater than 50% chance that Darvish won't be playing in 6 years. I don't think Darvish will give up his contract if he gets hurt, so the Twins will still be on the hook if he's permanently DL'd, so even if he ends up a +12 accumulated WAR before that, the cost per year is way too high, just as Zito's was. I hope you can understand what I'm trying to say, but it's a little hard to show since I don't have longevity stats. I think I've been pretty fair with estimates though.

No, the Twins have done stuff. It's just been crappy stuff like Colon, Santiago, Hughes, Nolasco, Milone, Correia, Pelfrey and Worley. Some of them actually had an average year or 2, but mostly they were "innings eaters". God I HATE that phrase. One of the reasons that they haven't developed pitching is that these bums plugged the pipeline and the young guys were forced to sit in AA and A until they had put in the requisite number of years that weren't often based on merit. I'd like to see more kids brought up younger and I wish they had given each of them a reasonable amount of time to develop in MLB. Why have some washed up starter taking the time that should be used to get the kids started. A lot of the kids are brought up, then sent down, brought up again etc. I don't think it's better to have a veteran throwing a 5.4 ERA than it is to have a kid throwing a 6. The advantage to the kid is that many of them are terrified by the experience and pressure and hopefully that will eventually erode, There has to be a reason that a kid in AAA is throwing a 2.5 with strikeouts that's brought up to subsequently throw a 6+. He can do better. Granted if the kid stays terrified after a third of a season, send him back down. Additionally, the Twins have actually had developing pitchers in the majors almost all of the time. I think it would be beneficial to have 2 up at the same time, again for a third of a season or so. If they've already got a kid up, his ERA doesn't matter because he'd be up already. The second youngster would be taking the place of one of the dud veterans. I think 2 youngsters at a time will help them make the transition, and it will a quicker way to identify the ones that might actually stick. If signing someone for 5 or 6 years, and even if they net 2 games over that time, (see previous post concerning projected WAR decline), the Twins will end up paying somewhere in the neighborhood of $80 million per game won for someone of that age. They'd be much better leaving their ERA at 4.6 and picking up a position player than a pitcher even though they might need SP more. There is no way I would spend that kind of money and years on Darvish for the number of WAR that he's likely to bring. It would make more sense (albeit also foolish) to give Lynn $30 mill for 3 years. They'd likely be getting more net WAR because his he'd probably net somewhere around 5 WAR for $90 mill instead of eating Darvish's net 1 or 2 after we suffer his last years which are very likely to be unproductive. I'd be much more willing to give up prospects for a kid throwing a 3.8 ERA in MLB for a couple of years. Most of our prospects don't have huge upsides, and many of them aren't likely to be really productive for another 3 years, especially in the Twins' minor league. The goal isn't to spend money. The goal isn't to get a big name. The goal is for management to get smart. Spend the $26-$30 mil on what helps the most.

If you're looking at trends, ERA is good at projecting ERA and WAR projects WAR. Either is fine if you are trying to predict future performance. As far as no one considering the fact that the top 4 are pretty close, I guaranty that everyone interested in Darvish has considered it.

It's impossible to say who for the reasons that you've given. We don't know who will be in contention, and we don't know what position that team will be trying to improve.

WAR is skewed by younger players. The average player age in MLB is 26-28. Thus, half of all MLB players have completed their careers by the age of 27 and have played their best years by the time they are 28. WAR ratings for this group of players on average will likely rise on until they approach 26 and then begin a pretty rapid decline or an immediate drop to zero in the case of a career ending injury. If you were to graph the ages of players beyond the age of 28, you will see a logarithmic decline from the age of 27, to pretty much zero at 42 or so because the number of players at the age of 42 is very few in relation to the number at 27. Think of the second half of a bell curve. That's what the graph would look like. Additionally, if you are looking to determine the actual projected WAR of an average player at the age of 31, the WAR is further inflated by the complete lack of any WAR for the players that are no longer playing after 27. If you want to calculate the annual decline of players at the age of 32 you need to factor in the players that are no longer in MLB at a WAR of 0. So an average decrease in WAR would be nowhere near .5. In fact the average WAR of players at the age of 34 or 35 is likely less than zero, because of career ending injury between the age of 27 and 31, or because a player is kept on a roster too long after they already have a negative WAR and the team can't force itself to take the hit of paying off a contract when they should, or because they are hoping that a player will somehow return to productivity but doesn't. So, because an adjustment of .5 is based on the age of 27, it's way more than that at 31. In fact if you use a REAL WAR decline, and you consider a WAR of 4 at the age of 30, Darvish's projected WAR will be zero or less by the age of 34, and it will continue to decline to the end of the contract. In that case the Twins will have paid, say $125 million for a net negative WAR over the next 5 years. You can say Darvish is an exception to the rule because his injuries have been permanently fixed, but he will have more injuries each year than he has in the past because that's the way it works in MLB. If the Twins really want pitchers, they need to be younger, and they certainly don't need to be in contention to trade for a good pitcher at deadline if the long term plan is to improve.

He's been a 2.4 WAR (Baseball Reference WAR) average over the last 4 years and he's only had one year over a 4 in his career. If trends continue, he'll start out a 2.0 WAR and within 2 or 3 years he'll more than likely be a negative. I guess it depends on what the definition of an ace is. I'd say ERA 3 or under with a history, and yes they are rare, but I'm not saying that it has to be an ace, just that we would likely do better than Darvish at that money. It's not too hard to find kids with 2 or 3 years under their belts at around a 3.2 or so. Those are the guys that I'd be interested in. There are teams that either aren't expecting to be in contention, or fall out of contention that are looking to rebuild. Depending on the quality, I'm pretty much willing to give up anything other than Berrios or Buxton, plus cash, and maybe even multiples that include other high prospects. . Everyone wants a big signing before the season. Last year everyone was convinced that we needed to trade Dozier, this year we have to have Darvish. Just remember what happened when we signed Mauer to the contract that he got, and Darvish isn't anywhere near what Mauer was. Mistakes that big hurt for a really long time.

I'm looking pretty much at everything, but mostly ERA. What are you looking at?

What happens if Darvish is awesome for three years? why do people only assume the worst when throwing this stuff out? If not now, when? Next year every team will have re-set their penalties, and the Twins will be bidding against all of them...... that list next year looks no better than Darvish, and some of them will get hurt....so, who? Almost all pitchers get worse from 31 to 37. He had really good years in 13 and 14 but the rest have been pretty much a 3.8. What's the basis for throwing out the 3 awesome year stuff? Maybe because you can come up with a few pitchers that have had excellent careers after 31? For every one that you name, I can come up with 10 that didn't. They should pick someone up when it makes sense. From what I've heard and seen Darvish wants 6 years and he has a 5 year offer in hand. I heard that he's had an offer of $26 mil, though I can't believe it's 5@26. So, I'm thinking maybe 5@23? That's insane. I don't know who, but they shouldn't spend that kind of money for that long for Darvish. Their best chance will likely be around trade time with a team that's out of contention and make a new contract with the new pitcher at trade time. The Twins have people to trade for an ace. And they'll also have that $26 million if they don't buy Darvish. Santana, Berrios and Gibson together had a sub 3.8 after the all star game. It's not even a sure thing that Darvish would be our 3.

Beats me, no one knows who will be available. If there aren't any, don't sign one. Sometimes the best move is to do nothing. Unless we can get one of these guys for $20ish million for 4 years we shouldn't do anything. If we want a real pitcher, we'll likely need to make a trade. Locking up a 32 year old for 6 years isn't a good move for a team like the Twins. One more thing though, the Pohlads will personally have a ton more money after their tax cuts. Hopefully that will mean deeper pockets.

Mike, What I'm saying is that these guys are pretty much interchangeable, and in fact I think you COULD roll dice to make a pick. Take a look at the stats on Darvish, Cobb, Lynn and Arrieta. I don't really see any outstanding trends, and each of them seem as if they're aging about the same. I think there are times where there are players that are better choices than others, just not here. As far as aces are concerned, like I said, there aren't any. That's why I think it's better not to commit to huge dollars this year, because we might be able to get a real ace next year for an extra $3 or 4 million a year. Am I saying I wouldn't like to have a 3.8 arm this year? No. What I am saying is that that kind of money over that many years will hamstring a team like the Twins. The Mauer contract has hurt the Twins a lot. It would be a real fluke if any of these guys average a 3.8 over the next 6 years, and if they average 4.2 over the 6 years, it means 3 of the years will average 4.6. What happens then? You know the Twins will keep them in the rotation, and they'll likely be out of the FA market for anything but has beens that "eat innings" again. If Darvish is above $23 million for more than 4 years it's too much. He's gonna go for more than that. Let him go.

I don't understand the fascination with Darvish. His stats don't really separate him from from the next 3 candidates. Darvish isn't an ace. I think if we're back in 7 years we'll see that he will likely average out as a 4-5 starter instead of a 2-3. If the Twins want to give Darvish a big and long contract, why not add a bit to it and get an ace? It may not be this year, it may not be next year, but why Darvish other than that we want to see a name on the staff. It's just not worth it. I think the Twins would be better served to take some of that money and give it to Dozier. The biggest problem is that the Twins plug their pipeline with subpar starting pitchers that cost more than they're worth and then keep them because they don't want to take a hit to buy them out. The Twins sign "innings eaters". I'm allergic to that term. Why does it matter if one bum pitches 200 innings at a 5 ERA when the same result comes from 2 or 3 bums that throw 200 innings at a 5+ ERA? I'd rather have 3 bums do it because one of them might end up becoming a decent pitcher. They would do much more with half the money they'd pay Darvish if they'd simply pay off the the starters that turn out to be duds. No one knows what pitchers they'd have right now if they brought up minor league pitchers when they should have. If minor leaguers don't get a chance, they'll begin to doubt their future, and that affects the way they pitch. Guys that will turn out to be decent starters won't ever get the chance. I'd much rather have Lynn if he saves us money and years. Same thing with any of the other top 5 free agents. There is absolutely no way to predict which 31 year old with a career 3.8 will be the better investment.

I've been searching my history and I'm not finding it, so my post on Cordoba could be wrong.

More on Cordoba: https://redbirdrants.com/2016/01/08/st-louis-cardinals-2016-top-prospects-25-allen-cordoba/

Twins get this kid from the Padres. http://www.gaslampball.com/2016/12/8/13882902/padres-ss-allen-cordoba-cardinals-rule-5-draft Interesting, either he's a starter or utility. Would make Escobar SS? Then Polanco to 2B? Maybe readying Dozier trade.

I'd be more than willing to have all of them back if it weren't for the Twins unwillingness to eat salary and release players that aren't contributing. I don't want to see dead weight plugging up the pipeline. I would love to see the new management bring up new prospects a bit more quickly and let them play with less micromanagement such as what they did to Barrios (letting Bert and seemingly anyone else just walking by to give advice, and actually making a pretty major change in how far he brought his right hand behind his back), and their great need to force them to learn to bunt (used way too much), hit to opposite fields (one of the biggest fallacies in the Twins organization), and reduce Ks significantly (Ks don't matter nearly as much as other stats). If you give a kid too much to think about, you're going to screw him up. Their main concern should be to make them as comfortable as they can be in their transition.

Sure they hide bad gloves in the corners, But why? It wouldn't be hard to comb MiLB and pick up the absolute best fielding team in MLB. Every single position, including every pitcher. Why don't they do that? Because they need hitting, and they also need pitchers that can get people out... so there are tradeoffs. They generally get their hits from LF, RF, 1B, and 3B, but the Twins don't. They get them from 2B. I would trade a +1 oWAR SS that hits 240 with no power, for a -.5 oWar SS that hits 280 with some power every day. I'm not saying that Polanco is a 280 hitter, but I think he has a real chance of hitting 280, and I also think his fielding will improve because there's evidence of that in his MiLB history. Oh, and I'd take Nunez's last year with the Twins every year if I could get it, because he more than made up for any fielding (and .983 isn't bad at all) with his bat. Range stats are one of the weakest stats that can be considered. They're generally only a measure of putouts or assists per game. They don't measure range at all, and range isn't something that you can judge by watching. What's more, a guy with the greatest REAL range is likely to commit more errors because he's touching balls that other guys don't and he's likely throwing while moving at a greater speed, or while he's off balance. So no. It's not as simple as saying that every successful team has to have strong defense up the middle, any more than saying bunting is really important, or saying that switch-hitting is really important, or that steals are really important, or left-handed pitchers are really important. All of those are bull because they can be off-set by other things.

Yes, Sano was a big factor, but ops doesn't take fielding into account and he played only 80 games. Because fielding should be taken into account, his war is lower than Dozier's. So you are absolutely wrong, Dozier was the single biggest factor in 2015. The fact that Dozier's 2015 was significantly lower in 2015 than in 2016, 2014 and 2013 only adds to his value as a player. Replacing Polanco is a very minor problem when you consider the Twins other problems, and I think I framed it in that context by listing their bigger problems. Would he be a problem for a good team? Sure he would, but the Twins aren't a good team. As far as defense is concerned, the ten shortstops in MLB that played the most innings averaged a dwar of 1. Polanco was a -.52, so, theoretically, his fielding cost the Twins half of a game last year, but he's -1.5 below the top ten inning SS last year. But his war is .6, and he was 22 years old, and his MiLB stats show a history of improvement. So, no. He's not a big problem, the problems that I listed are bigger problems. You mention 3b, rf, lf, and I'll throw in 1b. You say they're not as important as SS. The reason that statement is wrong is that there is an expected offense for each position on the field. SS is not a position that great offense is expected, but 1B, 3B, LF, and RF are. Keppler had a great month last year, but his MiLB stats don't come close to supporting those numbers. Mauer should retire, we don't have a 3B, and LF is weaker than SS if you consider expected offense for that position. Then consider pitching. So, no. In the scheme of things, SS is a minor problem for the Twins

Thanks for the welcome. It's always good to talk with an educated Twins fan.